Georgia on My Mind
by jmkw
Summary: When the camel’s straw ends up being an innocent life...things have to change. It may be for the best but who’s to say it's for better...WJ.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Don't own them. If I did, the following would be a non-issue. **

**Beware of Season ending spoilers. They can be stinky **

The last wave of baby fics came through her a few years ago. I rarely write solo anymore but I couldn't let this go by without tossing it in the ring. Bunnies are nasty that way. I hope it's a little different than the rest.

This doesn't start out as my usual fluffy crack so...Be warned. I'll probably hate myself before it's over...because angst is not me.

So queue the harps and the cheesy organ music...'cause here we go.

_FLUFF! FLUFF! _

See? The fluff bunnies in my head are rebelling already...oy vay.

Oh yeah, before I forget...The title _"Georgia on My Mind"_ is taken from the Ray Charles song of the same name. Once again, don't own it...just borrowing it for a few.

* * *

Jordan learned all she need to know about sex from Kim Watkins. Granted they were only 12 at the time and their facts were a little more based a little more on whispers heard in the hallways of St. Inez rather than the true facts. Still, those little inexperienced discussions stuck with Jordan even after all these years. She smoothed her hand over her slightly rounding belly and smiled.

"You were wrong about this one Kimmy," she smiled to herself. "You CAN get pregnant the first time you have sex with someone..."

She chuckled to herself remembering the night she got pregnant. The first time was definitely just a warm-up.

"Okay, I got probably got knocked up somewhere between having moonshine drank out of the small of my back and having the melted chocolate eyeball washed out of her hair."

Five months ago, Jordan wasn't in such a joking mood when she realized she was carrying a child. She'd never been regular and that irregularity was compounded with all the craziness in her life the last year.

What she thought was a little bout with the flu ended up being a little souvenir from a stolen night in a snowy inn. Five months ago Jordan cried like a baby herself, slapping her forehead saying "stupid, stupid, stupid..."

For those first few weeks she couldn't decide if it was for the worse of for the better. Like that preverbal ostrich, Jordan choose to stick her head in the sand. In crazy moments, she made up excuses from the tests being wrong, to cervical cancer...to early menopause. Fate couldn't be doing this to her. My God! She couldn't even keep a gold fish alive. She believe in pro-choice, just not for her. Ready or not, Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh, workaholic and all around general screw up was suddenly, and entirely, responsible for another human being's life. Those first few weeks were riddled late night uncharacteristic panic attacks.

That all changed when Kayla came into her life. Jordan smiled fondly thinking of the young girl...no, young _woman..._that in a few short weeks changed her life outlook on life so completely. Jordan gave the girl shelter, food, and a shoulder to cry on and Kayla gave back the world. A world Jordan could barely remember. That unconditional love a mother has for a child.

For the first time Jordan was able to admit to herself that maybe, just maybe, she could do this. She never kidded herself. She knew it was going to be difficult. But Mother Nature is a smart broad. Jordan was going to give birth to a tiny being that didn't care about what they were going to wear to school...need help with history homework...or require the birds and bees talk right off the bat.

No. At first, all the baby would care about is that he...or she...was fed and dry. That there would be someone there when they woke up or cried and that they were loved and treasured. Mother Nature built in a learning curve for both mother and child. They'd grow together.

Jordan was lucky. She escaped the usual early pregnancy maladies. No morning sickness, no tenderness...no hair in weird places. The only things she could brag about were an over-active bladder and the need for sleep 24/7. Not surprisingly, the two really didn't compliment each other well.

As the reality of her situation settled into comfortable fact, Jordan decided it would be easier to claim the baby was JD's. Nobody had to know JD had had a vasectomy long before he met Jordan. With no Pollack around to discredit her, the lie came easy. Not that she made a big deal about it.

After all she was a single, professional woman, of a certain age, who just happened to be having a baby. Of course the questions were raised. Jordan brushed them all away with a Madonna like smile and a wave of her hand. This was HER baby and that was all the counted.

Woody was the only one that wasn't completely convinced. Maybe he could read it in her eyes. Maybe there was some _way_ he could tell. Her adolescent chats with Kim never got that far...nor did they cover that part in medical school. Jordan sucked it up and lied through her teeth. Woody grudgingly accepted it.

She didn't have a choice. Woody had moved on...if he was ever there to begin with. No, this was for the best. Jordan just wanted her baby. She really didn't need or want a "father" in the picture.

Especially one that spent his nights in another woman's bed.

It all came crashing down when she got a call from JD. He was back in town and needed to see her. She never got a chance to explain about the baby before she found herself in a rented motel room with her hand on a gun and JD lying next to her with a whole in his chest. As far as the world was concerned, she had shot her baby's father.

The baby flipped in her belly as Jordan thought about the dark days that followed.

Even after she was exonerated, there was the specter of his murder hanging over her. JD owned a place in her heart that nobody else could. She mourned him quietly...her and her baby...alone.

His life ended bringing her answers she had been looking for all her life. It also ripped open a new hole and added even newer questions. Even though, Jordan knew she would be able to over come them and someday put his memory to rest. The new life she was carrying inside her would help...that, and the fact that Garret hid that JD's vasectomy deep in the autopsy report. Even in death, JD was watching out for her and her child.

"It's okay...baby." she murmured lightly.

She couldn't bring herself to call the baby "he" or "she" or even "it". If truth be known, even after 24 weeks, she was still trying to process it all. Just like she couldn't call herself "_relationship material_", Jordan still was still accepting picturing herself as "_Mother material_".

Mommy and me. God she hated that phrase. It reminded her of baby stroller brigades in the mall and under heard discussions about play dates and getting into the _right_ preschool. Still, it would be just her and her baby and Jordan couldn't be happier...

The only thing that would make her happier would be someone else to take this last call. It was bad enough to be stuck at a crime scene when you had to pee every five minutes...but seeing Woody's dark head inching over the crowd wasn't what she'd call a _happy_ thing...

* * *

Woody watched Jordan as she awkwardly climbed out of the tall meat wagon. Garret wasn't letting her out in the field without one of the resident body snatchers right on her heals. He figured it just seemed more economical if they car pooled. Woody couldn't deny Garret's logic. He's seen Jordan muscle stiffs around more times than he could count. He knew she'd do it now just to prove she could.

She looked _different_ pregnant. Not in a bad way...just different. He, himself, didn't know about the baby until Jordan's figure started to change.

Jordan claimed she never hid the fact she was pregnant...she just didn't feel he needed a personal notification. It wasn't his. She told him out right that the baby was planned.

Her biological clock was ticking and Pollack was handy...and he agreed to be the donor. It made Woody wonder if Pollock proposal was a by product of the deal. Woody knew if it were his child he'd have a ring on her finger before she could do something stupid...like sleeping with her best friend.

Woody held his arm up and yelled "Jordan! Over here..."

* * *

Jordan's back ached after she finished the autopsy. She asked the tech on duty to finish closing for her. She needed to sit down.

"You're cramping my style," she smiled to herself. "I used to be able to get knee deep in a case like this and still have energy to party 'til dawn. Now I'm lucky if I make it until the end of the day..."

Jordan frowned at her desk. The couch looked more inviting. Putting her feet up sounded so much better for her back than just _sitting._

"Good choice..." she whispered to her belly.

Jordan gratefully sank down on the cushions with the file and her ever present water bottle in hand.

Caucasian female, 24. At first count, on the scene, Jordan saw seven stab wounds to the chest and abdomen. When they got her on the slab they found a total of 12.

Jordan could almost feel the rage that it must have taken to inflict the wounds. She thumbed over the victim's tox report. It was a small consolation that girl was stoned out of her brain. She was probably dead before it registered what was happening to her.

_Who did this?_

'No,' Jordan chastised herself. It wasn't her job.

The second the little stick on her pregnancy test turned pink Jordan knew that very aspect of her life would change. As Garret put it, her habit of single-handedly solving the crimes of the city was one of the things that would need to stop. Unfortunately, it was easier said then done. Every unexplained death that crossed her path still called out to her.

Sometimes louder than the butterfly flutters in her womb.

It didn't help either, that her problems with Woody had spilled over into their work. _Before, _they dogged each other's steps over every phase of the investigation. _Before_, they all but finished each other's sentences in the symbiotic professional relationship they had. _Before_, they'd compare notes over coffee and laughs over drinks once the bad guy was behind bars.

Well, Jordan's coffee and scotch days are over. As, apparently, were their days of working together. Woody just called for his reports now. She didn't mind. It made her lies easier when he wasn't around.

But it would be nice to know what he was doing...if anything.

She ticked her fingernail against the corner of the file. This victim, this _woman, _no matter who or what she was in life deserved a voice in death.

Woody in his usual narrow-mindedness had already chalked the homicide up as a domestic between a crack-whore and her pimp. He was honest when he said this case would just slip through the cracks. This was just one of twenty-seven open cases on his desk...any one of them had more to go on then this one.

He told her to not get her hopes up on this one. He reminded her, in no uncertain terms, that her days of playing cop were over. He shouted at her that if she wanted to help this woman she should just do her job.

It seemed like hours before she felt her blood pressure back go back to normal.

Jordan knew the score. It's a song she's heard a number of times before. With each new victim there was a different verse. The department knew who committed this crime...but the monster that did it also knows how to dance to the same tune.

The perp would only be momentarily inconvenienced. Jordan knew without asking that his alibi would be rock solid. The murder weapon was undoubtedly at the bottom of the Charles and his empty spot in the stable was probably filled before Jordan made her first cut.

She didn't need to hear Woody's voice to know his hands were tied. She already knew. Unless she could find something in the forensics this case would go cold before it had a chance to heat up.

"It always falls back to the science," she said idly touching her belly. "Remember that. It's the only thing you can trust."

The next day Jordan found herself standing over the body again. Nothing. She spent hours combing the body for any minute detail. Nada. Before anyone could stop her Jordan drove out to the scene. If Woody's badge couldn't knock on a few doors, maybe she could...


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2:**

While Jordan has secretly doing her own investigation, Woody couldn't wait to call it a day. He looked at his watch and corrected himself... _Morning _actually.

He wanted to take the world's longest shower and follow it up with the world's second longest. It never helped it never did. There wasn't enough water in the world to wash away the filth he sees on a daily basis.

He spent the night going from alleyway to alleyway until he found his perp. Five minutes was all he wanted. Five minutes was enough to rattle someone's cage. The creep wasn't any more forthcoming then he was with his lawyer in tow, but Woody didn't have to worry about the cameras of the interrogation room.

Jordan had nothing from the body. It didn't surprise him. This wasn't the first prostitute from that corner to turn up dead. And unless they could find something...anything...this piece of shit would do it again. If he was lucky, he riled the piece of crap enough to get him to slip up.

Sometime you had to get dirty to get the job done.

The job wasn't fair. The scales of justice were weighed to heavy on the wrong side. It was times like this that he felt like he was over his head and sinking quickly. He had to reach deep down and try to remember why he did what he did.

Days like today, he just wanted to jump in his car and drive until Boston was a distant memory. It was days like this he doubted if he'd even make it through the day without going completely insane.

He clocked out and stumbled to his car. He was keying the lock when his phone rang and his whole being crumbled around him in one fatal moment.

"Woody, this is Garret. Jordan's been...hurt. She's on her way to the hospital."

* * *

The news from the scene was pretty sketchy but that wasn't stopping Garret from getting to the bottom of what happened. Jordan told Lily she was going back to the scene of the homicide she'd pulled the day before. She had some questions she wanted to ask some of the locals. 

Lily's inner voice told her to tell him. Over the years, Garret's learned to take that little voice of hers seriously. He was about to pick up the phone to call Jordan and tell her to get her butt back to work...when it rang instead.

The first officer on the scene recognized her. Jordan had been stabbed twice in the abdomen and her throat had been slashed. Garret could only imagine the blood bath the officer and his partner had stumbled on. By the time the ambulance arrived Jordan had lost consciousness. By the time she arrived at the hospital they couldn't find the baby's heartbeat.

Now, he stood staring down the hospital hallway waiting to see if they could still save Jordan.

That was how Woody found him. He didn't need to ask to know it was bad. It was written all over Macy's face.

"Is she...?" Woody asked softly. He didn't dare speak any louder. Like if he voiced it, it would be true.

For Woody it seemed like it took Garret hours to answer when in actuality it only took seconds.

"...no." Garret said methodically. "She did seize on the way to surgery. They had to restart her heart twice."

Woody felt his stomach drop into his feet as Garret told him everything he knew. Woody answered the questions that were left.

Jordan walked into a hornet's nest that Woody riled. He should have told her about what he did. He should have realized she'd do something like go down there herself.

He _knew_ her. He knew how her mind worked around a body.

He remembered the crime scene. Their heated words. His realistic pessimism, her dogged tenacity to find justice in even the most impossible situations. It seemed like they were always yelling at each other anymore.

Garret spelled out Jordan's prognosis. Woody only heard every other word. The blood was pumping too loudly in Woody's ears.

"...if there is any consolation they were able to stop the uterine bleeding. A hysterectomy isn't necessary..."

"What?" Woody gasped as it sunk in. "The baby...?"

Garret laid his hand on Woody's shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"My God. She really wanted this baby so bad...Pollack...She's going to be devastated..."

Garret knew he was overstepping his bounds but in light of the tragedy he felt Woody needed to know the truth.

"The baby was yours Woody."

"No..."

Years of conditioning surfaced in Garret. He did the only thing he knew what to do. "I'm sorry for your loss..."

Woody felt the blood leave his face. He sank down in a near by chair.

"No...You're mistaken. If Jordan was pregnant with my...with my...baby she would have been upfront with me...You know how she feels about dishonesty."

"She felt she had her reasons Woody. I didn't agree with her...but I had to respect her wishes."

"Reasons? What fucking reasons would she have to keep me from my child...?"

Even as the question was out of his mouth Woody knew the answer. She cut him out of his child's life because he had cut her out of his. She didn't want him to feel the need to hang on to a dieing relationship.

He buried his head in his hands. He willed the tears to come but all he felt was empty.

Down the hallway the surgeon was breathing a guarded sigh of relief. Jordan's bleeding had been controlled. Now the question remained...was the woman inside the body saved as well.

* * *

It took two more days to answer those questions. 

Two long days that Garret stood vigil at Jordan's bed. For the first 24 hours they kept her in a medically induced coma and respirator. The second day she was raised from critical and taken off the breathing apparatus.

Now they just waited.

Woody spent his time in the waiting room with the others. Every time he closed his eyes he saw as she was when they wheeled her out of surgery. He didn't recognize her. At first he thought that maybe someone made a mistake. That the person in that bed wasn't her. Garret assured him there hadn't been any mistakes. The tubes, the wires, the sounds and smells were all too much for Woody to handle. Even after countless pints of blood she still had that waxy pale look of death. He refused to stand there and watch when he knew he was the one to blame. He stood back unable to leave...but unable to worry with the rest.

* * *

Jordan's eyes fluttered open and she heard Garret's gentle encouraging words. 

"That's it. Come back Jordan..."

The first sensation she had was one of weightlessness but when she tried to move she felt like a herd of elephants were sitting on her. Garret's face came into view. She opened her mouth to speak and nothing but a hoarse whisper came out.

"Don't try to talk... you had a breathing tube down her throat for awhile. Your vocal cords are going to be a little tender. Do you want something to drink?"

When she nodded Garret cautiously let out the breath he had been holding forever and poured her a cup of water.

"Jordan?" he asked once she had a sip from the straw. "Do you know where you are?"

Jordan nodded and her hands inched to her middle she felt the flat plane of her abdomen.

* * *

Jordan was allowed one visitor at a time. Garret asked Woody if he wanted to be first. Woody just shook his head and said he had something to take care off. It did take a mind reader to know what he was going to do. Garret caught him at the elevator. 

"It's not worth it Hoyt. She's fine. She's going to be alright. Let the system work."

"Really?" Woody said sarcastically. "She's lost her child and she damn near lost her life. She'll carry the scars around to remind her of it for the rest of her life. Don't tell me she's going to be alright Doc...because nothing is ever going to be the same for her again."

Woody pushed away the second the elevator opened and he slammed the close button as soon as he stepped in, leaving Garret standing helplessly as he watched his friend go flush his life away.

* * *

Jordan was thankful for the Morphine that was steadily dripping in her IV. Not only were her injuries reduced to a dull ache, but she was also able to turn off her emotion pain as well. The only thing that she couldn't ignore was this empty feeling deep down inside. She knew in her heart of hearts no drug could ever take that away. 

Lily combed her hair and pulled it back in a scrunchie. She refused to let Jordan look in the mirror just telling her that she still looked beautiful. Jordan wanted to see the cut on her neck and later convinced Nigel to let her look.

It wasn't as bad as she thought it would be. As the knife was digging in her throat she was sure it was going to go straight through to her spine. Something stopped him. A noise or a movement...or Jordan pleading for her child's life.

Funny, she doesn't remember the pain. There must have been. You'd think there would be. Jordan let the fuzzy edges of her drug muffled thoughts take her to a calmer place.

* * *

Intensive care had its own set of visitor hours. Or at least that's what Woody told himself when he let himself in to Jordan's room. It was well after midnight and the lights were still on. For the first time Woody saw the true extent of her injuries. The most obvious was the cut on her neck. It went ear to ear, standing out like some grotesque smile on her pale skin. He didn't want to see what was below the blanket even though it was obvious what was missing. 

He remembered the day he noticed the change. He had heard the rumors. He chose to ignore them until he couldn't anymore. Jordan should have told him the baby was his. But conversations between them were strained at best and he could see where she would have thought she wouldn't be welcome.

Deep down, he could honestly admit he might have not been.

Now he'd never know. His baby was gone and he didn't even know if he would have had a son or a daughter.

Jordan woke up to see Woody staring at her with an expression she had hoped she'd never see again. It was one of utter defeat. The same look he had when he told her to screw her pity and kicked her out of his life for the first time.

"Hey," she whispered.

Woody's eyes locked with hers and he smiled.

"Hey."

"I heard you threatened to castrate one of the hospital's janitors."

"He tried to take my coffee cup and I wasn't done yet."

"So they kicked you out..."

"No," Woody chuckled. "Lily made me apologize."

"Oh...my mistake. I figured you waited until now to sneak past security to say hi. I've seen your face since I woke up. A girl notices these things." she whispered with a weak chuckle.

Leave it to Jordan to joke at a time like this. Woody took the chair that someone had left by the bed. "You know me. I get queasy at the sight blood."

"Garret's not very good at lying. He said you stepped out to check on the status of my...the case. You didn't do something stupid did you?"

Woody scrubbed his hands down his face and Jordan saw the abrasions on his knuckles.

"Oh Woody."

For a second the only sound in the room was her IV pump administering he next set of pain medications. Jordan felt them sing into her veins.

The words poured out of some where deep in his soul.

"I wasn't going to let him get away with this. I didn't care what it cost me. He wasn't going to live another minute. I found him in this pool hall next to the bus station. He knew why I was there and he knew there wasn't a legal thing I could do about it. All I wanted to do was wipe that smug look off his face. Before I knew it I had him against the wall with a pool stick pressed against his throat. He stood there turning purple and all I could think of was how easy he was getting off."

"That's when I heard your voice. Suddenly, I was back in that garage...I had my gun stuffed up Riggs nose and all I wanted to do was pull the trigger. But you told me he wasn't worth it. You told me I was better than that. You weren't going to let me pay for his crimes. Suddenly... I couldn't do it. I wanted to so bad...but I couldn't kill him."

Jordan nodded giving him a watery smile. "I'm glad."

"I'm not cut out for this anymore Jordan."

Jordan looked at him incredulously.

"It's my fault you're here. I purposely spun him up and you walked in to a trap. It's my fault the baby is gone."

"Woody..." she warned. She looked at her IV wishing it away. Her fuzzy brain was trying to process what he was saying but it was too difficult.

"I've lost myself somewhere along the line. I almost killed a man in cold blood tonight and I can't guarantee I won't try again tomorrow."

Jordan felt a faint cold fear through the miasma of her meds. "Stop it. You don't know what you're saying..."

"I'm leaving. I have to. I turned my badge in about a half hour ago. I can't live like this anymore Jordan. Everything I love I destroy. I need to step back and find some even ground."

"Woody don't. Don't leave me." Her fragile supply of energy was dwindling fast.

Woody stood up and kissed her forehead. "It'll be better for everyone concerned this way."

"But I love you..." she mouthed.

The whispered words cut him through the bone.

"...I know"

He held her face in his hands until the drugs caught up with her again and he kissed her sleeping lips softly. "I love you too."

* * *

_AN: Phew. That's over. It can only get brighter from here. :) _


	3. Chapter 3

**One Year Later**

Jordan rounded the curve at 13th and Belleview and picked up the pace. Running had almost become an addiction to her lately. She teased everyone that she was going to do the marathon this year but either had to work or slept in for every qualifier. She was content pounding away a few miles every chance she could get. Running was what helped her to heal.

It took her the better part of two weeks to get out of the hospital. They put her on seizure meds as a precaution. The side effects made her weaned herself off of them after the first three weeks. She never had any trouble.

She didn't go back to work for four and it took another six to convince the review board that just because she couldn't remember if the Barbie she got on her sixth birthday had a blue dress or a purple one she could still do her job.

Jordan was left with some hazy spots in her memories. At times she had to stop and ask herself if she was remembering something right. As a doctor she knew the blood loss was to blame. Jordan had no doubts she would have been dead if she hadn't have been for the baby. The added blood volume of her pregnancy brought her some extra time which kept her from not having more lasting effects. Outside of the physical scars, and an occasional migraine, Jordan was fully recovered.

Six months after the attack, Howard recommended her to a plastic surgeon. She had the scar under her chin fixed. The ugly red line was smoothed out to a thin silver one. She joked that she went in for boobs and they screwed up. Which was a big step for her. It took six months to learn to laugh again.

Jordan stopped running and leaned against the railing on a nearby building's front stoop. Unconsciously, she ran her fingers over the twin scars on her abdomen. The plastic surgeon offered to take care of them too but Jordan wanted to keep them...like a talisman. She never wanted to forget what she lost in that alley way.

Her baby and her best friend.

It took her a few weeks before she could sleep with the lights off. She still wakes up every once in awhile hearing a baby cry...but those nights was beginning to come fewer and further apart. As were those times she'd see Woody's smile on a face in a crowd...

True to his word, Woody left that day he said goodbye.

Like most of those first few days her memory of her last conversation with him was mixed with narcotic-induced imaginings. Garret had to explain what happened more than once.

Less than 12 hours after she heard the goodbye, the man that stabbed her was behind bars being arraigned on a murder charge and Woody's taillights had seen the last of Boston.

A year later, her attacker was serving a life sentence and Woody was living somewhere in Georgia of all places... At least that was what she heard from the grape vine.

When she needed him..._Really_ needed him most, Woody bailed again.

That was then and this is now. Jordan had rebuilt her life.

Just last month Garret announced he was retiring. He wanted to take some time and rebuild his relationship with his daughter, do a little traveling...maybe write that novel he's always wanted too.

Jordan was heartbroken at first but she realized that she of all people knew that nothing can ever stay the same. People's needs changed. For some, there was more to life than the hallways of the morgue. Jordan tried that once. It blew up in her face.

Garret told her he was recommending her for the CME's position. She felt she was ready. Only the Powers to Be didn't.

They said it was too soon after her attack. Jordan read between the lines. They thought she was an outstanding ME...but too much of a loose canon to be in charge. Slokum was set to take over at the end of the quarter.

With the news, Lily was the first to leave. She found a job with the state mental health commission. Bug was quick to follow. He took a teaching position in the entomology department at Boston College. Even Nigel had been talking about crime labs in warmer climates and big budgeted facilities.

Jordan planned on sticking it out. The morgue was her home...even if was starting to feel less and less like it each passing day.

Jordan picked up the pace of her jog. Before long she found herself at the back loading dock of the crypt. She was surprised to see Garret overseeing a mortuary pickup. He held his hand up in a wave.

"If we were that short staffed today I could have come in earlier..." she smiled.

"I just wanted a little fresh air and sunlight." Garret replied

Jordan stopped behind him and arched her back. The skies were over cast and the gas fuses from the running hearse were stifling in the narrow loading dock.

"Whatever..."

"Actually I wanted to clear my head. I got a consult request about an hour ago..." Garret said matter-of-factly.

"Since when do you take consults?" Jordan smirked. "It's not crazy enough here for you; you have to being in someone else's problems?"

Garret simply nodded. "This one was special."

"Sounds interesting,' Jordan hummed. "So what's the case?"

"Eighteen year old male from a local college found at the bottom of a ravine. It looks like he took a dive off the top of a railroad bridge. There was a suicide note at the scene."

"But it doesn't look like suicide." her voice spiked with curiosity. It was just the reaction Garret was looking for.

"No," Garret's lips thinned out. "Everything points to a suicide..."

"So what do they need you for?" Jordan smirked.

Garret turned and walked back into the building. Jordan followed closely on his heals. "There was a second case reported less then twelve hours later."

"You've been in this business long enough to know that suicides breed suicides."

"You're probably right, but the detective in charge of the case doesn't feel right about where the facts are pointing and I trust his instincts."

"So what are you going to do?" Jordan said leaning against the freight elevator wall.

"I don't know. I was hoping you'd take a look at some of the pictures and give me your take."

"Are you trying to pass this one off on me Garret?" she teased.

"No," Garret replied honestly. "It's just that you and this detective think a lot alike. I thought maybe you'd see what he saw."

Jordan's curiosity was peeked as Garret handed her the email printouts from his desk. She thumbed through them. There was the young man that was lying, broken, at the bottom of a railroad trestle. From the photos he had obviously fallen to his death. Just because there was a note doesn't mean he couldn't have been pushed.

Second, was a young woman, maybe in her late teens, early twenties. Even in the photos, it was obvious she was in the early to mid stages of pregnancy. She was lying on a bed. Her arms slashed from elbow to wrist. Jordan blinked and turned the last set of photos over. It was still hard for her to stay objective when it came to death and pregnancy.

"Lover's pact?"

"Could be...but there is no evidence they even knew each other."

"Did she leave a note too?"

"Yes," he said handing her grainy scanned copies of the notes.

Jordan read through them. They all basically said the same thing all suicide notes do. Life's too much. I can't go on...yadda yadda. What struck her funny was the female's note. It was short and to the point. Her baby's father wasn't going to support her and she killed herself because of it. Normally when a young woman contemplates the act of suicide she'll wax poetic on and on spelling out details of everything that drove her to that point.

Jordan studied both notes again, noting the verbiage, the tone...the sheer lack of detail. The fine hairs on the back of her neck rose.

"I have to admit I'm curious. Whose case is this? Is it someone local or cross state?"

"Actually it's out of state."

"We don't take out of state consults. We're not budgeted. You know that."

"He called as a personal favor."

Garret handed Jordan a copy of the original email. The header read Harrison County Sheriff's Office. Derry, Georgia.

"_Georgia?" _Even as the question escaped her mouth, Jordan had a feeling just _who_ the detective in question was. She looked down the page to the automatically generated signature: _Sgt. Woodrow Hoyt._

She rolled her mouth as she read the rest of the email. The tone was conversational. Like some one who had been gone a week instead of a year. It was down right chummy...

Woody detailed the cases and then, almost as an after thought, it went on to ask about Abby's last adventure and the latest staff fall-out from Garret's pending retirement.

The woman inside Jordan felt a little tug that it looked like Garret and Woody kept in contact but she hasn't heard a word from him in a year. She flipped the email over onto the copies of the dead female's photos.

"What do you think?" Garret asked.

"I don't know," she replied honestly. "It's hard to tell from a handful of crime scene photos."

"The local ME is more used to cutting up insurance mandates and the occasional traffic fatality. Derry Georgia is not known for its murder rate. Woody asked his captain to hold off until he talked to me. "

"I'm sure there is some kind of State task force or local city Medical Examiner's Office he could have called first. Boston is a little out of the beaten path for...where?" Jordan flipped the page over to check out the name of the city. "...Derry, Georgia."

"Probably...but he called us."

"So what are you planning on doing?"

"I thought I'd ask you if you'd like to go down there and take a look."

"_WHAT?" _

"Just a day or two. Go down there. Take a quick look. I'm asking you as my friend Jordan. As a favor for a friend."

Jordan rolled her eyes. He knew she'd say no if it was for Woody. But he asked her to go for himself.

"I suppose you want me to take vacation time too."

"Let's call it professional development time. We'll say you are going down there to do a little career development."

"In Georgia...?" Jordan said with more than a touch of sarcasm.

"Jordan, Woody must think he has something and he has his reasons for asking our help. I think we owe him that much."

Jordan didn't say anything. She didn't have to. She picked up the photos and looked at them again.

"If you leave now you can be there just after midnight..."Garret said picking up the phone.

Jordan looked at Garret like he'd lost his mind. If he thought she was going to drive...

"I'm sending down some equipment with you...Woody says their lab has a little to be desired."

"Great. This just gets better and better.."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

**Major Disclaimer: Okay. I've _driven_ through the state of Georgia...maybe a half a dozen times. Why did I pick Georgia? I don't know. It was about one o'clock in the morning when I to the point where I needed a place and Georgia sounded like a good warm place to go to and start over. As far as I know, there is no Harrison County or Derry, Georgia. The whole area is only in my head. Just remember...my version of suburban rural Georgia is a total 100 percent fabrication and I mean no disrespect in my portrayal. **

* * *

It was just after one in the morning. Woody should have been home hours ago. He was sure Alice had left him a nasty message by now. She didn't like to be left home alone and made sure he knew it. Why he always seemed to end up with high maintenance women he never know. He checked his watch for the twentieth time in the last twenty minutes. He tapped a pencil on his desk in a rapid staccato waiting for the phone call he's been waiting for all night. 

When Garret called earlier and told him he'd give him all the help he'd need Woody did a little happy dance in his head.

His partner was calling him a conspiracy theorist and his boss was begrudgingly sitting on the autopsy requests and their inevitable sign-offs until Woody, the former hot shot big city homicide detective, had got his second opinion.

Woody assumed Garret would just look at the police reports. Maybe he'd suggest some out of the norm forensic testing.

...maybe he was waiting for Macy to tell him that the Georgia humidity had boiled his brain.

He wasn't prepared for was Garret sending an ME all the way down to Derry to assist in the investigation.

...He was further blindsided when Garret later called and said Jordan was on her way. Woody wondered just how many rules the retiring CME was breaking.

He also wondered why Jordan was the one on her way. The last time he talked to her he planned it to be just that...the last time. He'd sat through enough AA meetings with Cal to know that the only way to stop the cycle of self-destructive behaviors was to make a clean break. He had a year to put his past screw-ups behind him.

Then why were his hands so sweaty?

Woody's partner thought the ME from Boston coming to Derry was going a little over- kill with the county's first suicides in ten years. Woody's captain was just excited to have someone who had experience with suspicious deaths was taking the extra step to request assistance. He didn't care if Woody was calling in Miss Cleo as long as it didn't come out of his budget. The local ME was the most excited. Dr. Franks was a retired surgeon that was more familiar with appendicitis surgery than a possible murder.

Woody stood up and paced his office. He didn't know how excited he was. Maybe Manning was right. Maybe after ten months of investigating nothing more serious than a stolen bass boat and occasional marijuana garden raid, Woody was just itchy for a good old fashion murder mystery. The first body that shows up and he fell into his old habits and dropped a dime on his friends in Massachusetts for help.

Was he just antsy?

He stopped and picked up the crime scene photos he had been studying all day. Two kids, that by all accounts ran in totally different circles.

Woody was more familiar with the male. He was a frequent flyer in the office. His juvie record was dotted with charges of possession, B&E, disorderly and few more. Nothing more than many of the young people in town.

When there is nothing better to do on a Friday night then to hang out in the Wal-Mart parking lot there was going to be some problems.

Derry was a farm town that was going through a renaissance. New industries were being drawn in, replacing farm fields and families were being seduced with the idea of moving away from the problems of the cities to the slower pace of Harrison County. The only problem was these same people brought their vices with them. It was one of the reasons Woody was hired.

The young woman he wasn't as acquainted with. Her family had been residences of Harrison County for generations. Woody had never met the girl in person but he remembered seeing her sitting on top of the homecoming float last winter. By the looks of the pictures that had to be around the time she got pregnant. Derry had more than it's fair share of teen pregnancies. Woody chalked it up to that Friday Night at Wal-Mart issue again.

He was about to check his watch one more time when his phone rang. He picked up before it could ring again.

* * *

The hair on Jordan's forearms was sticking up straight with the amount of caffeine she had humming through her system. She had picked up a great radio station just outside of Savannah and she had it turned up so loud that she was surprised blood wasn't dripping out of her ears. She was singing to an old Stones tune when she saw the sign that said Welcome to Harrison County. 

That was when she also realized she had picked up a tail. The rack of lights on the roof said she was being followed by one of the locals. She double checked her speed, never missing a note with Mick. The last thing she needed to do after not talking to Woody in almost a year was to ask him to fix a ticket.

* * *

Woody hung up the phone and left his office locking the door behind him. He loitered around dispatch for a minute before he wandered out to the parking lot. He was leaning up against the front portico of the building when he saw Jordan's black SUV pull in. The uniform he asked to contact him when he saw a Massachusetts license tag tapped his blue lights when he saw him. Woody waved in greeting as the car just cruised on past back to patrol. 

Jordan pulled up in the fire line and turned off the engine. Carlos Santana's distinctive guitar was cut off in mid rift. She rested her arm from the open window frame and gave him a two fingered wave.

"Hey..."

Even in the harsh parking lot lighting and after a long road trip Woody noticed she looked good. Better than he remembered.

He could remember a time when he thought his world could have easily started and ended with her face. But that was a lifetime ago.

He pushed away from his spot against the entryway into the building and walked slowly over to where she was parked. What do you say after a year? He spent the better part of the day thinking about just that.

His well rehearsed speech flew out of his brain when she gave him a slow, lopsided smile.

"You made good time."

Jordan looked at the litter of water bottles and energy bars wrappers she had collected over the last 18 hours. She only made the necessary stops.

"How the hell did you find this place? It's not exactly on the beaten path..."

Woody stopped a few feet anyway from the driver's side door and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"...That was the point," he said looking toward the darkened town. "How have you been Jordan?"

Jordan waited a beat before answering. "Good. I've been good."

"You look good," he smiled scratching the day old stubble on his chin.

Jordan grinned knowing she looked like death warmed over.

"I'm sure you're tired," he added. "I checked you in at the motel near the hospital."

Woody reached in his back pocket and pulled out a keycard. He stepped closer to the SUV holding it out. His eyes flicked to her neck.

The bug-filled glow of the street lamps washed out her features too much to see the scar he knew she had. Jordan noticed his look, her hand fluttered at the steering wheel before she took the card from his hand.

"Dr. Franks wants to start the autopsies first thing," Woody unconsciously nodded off in the direction of the hospital.

Startled, Jordan said, "They're not done yet?"

"He wanted to wait for the pinch hitter I called in from Beantown..." Woody chucked. Jordan's lips twitched instinctively knowing that those weren't Woody's own words.

"Then I'd been get some sleep so I can daze and maze," she replied as if saying 'so I can perform like a caged bear.'

"Doc Franks isn't a bad guy Jo. In fact, he can't wait to meet you. Apparently he saw you speak at a coroner's convention a few years ago..."

Woody didn't add that Dr. Franks thought Jordan had about the worst delivery of any speaker he'd ever heard...but she seemed to know what she was talking about...and she didn't look bad in a pencil skirt suit.

Woody pointed at his old Chevy that was parked a few feet away "If you follow me, I'll lead you over to the Motor Lodge."

The motel and hospital was a few blocks over from the police station. Jordan had a feeling she had passed through the only street lights in town. The Pairview Regional Medical Center was smaller than the name implied. Its core was a generic two story building that was probably originally built a half a century ago.

Time had changed the original architecture as new additions and faculties had been attached through the years. In the day light, Jordan could probably name the decade each change was made. Each change had been designed in the style of the era which made for a crazy patch look to the complex. All in all it looked in well repair and not suffering from the trap of managed health care and rising costs that have crippled many of the nation's rural hospitals.

Derry had some money somewhere. On the drive down I-95 she thought she was heading to some backwoods Mayberry but was pleasantly pleased to discover a nicely developed community.

She quickly augmented the assessment when she saw a farm tracker parked on the side of the road. She was still in Mayberry. It was just a Mayberry on steroids.

Jordan flipped on her turn signal when she saw Woody had done the same. The Motor Lodge was lit only by the big neon sign out front and a single street light. The parking out had a sprinkling of cars and trucks all coated in a fine coat of dew making Jordan well aware of the hour.

In a town like Derry they probably rolled the sidewalks up at sunset. Even the tourists were tucked neatly in bed.

Two days...max, and her happy ass was going to be back in Boston where she belonged.

Woody pulled over, under the street lamp, and pointed out his window to a parking spot on the corner of the building. Apparently the darkened room in front of it was hers. Jordan pulled in and put the SUV in park.

She sent up a silent prayer of thanks that she didn't have anymore driving to do for awhile before reaching for her bag and popping the back hatch. Woody had her suitcase out before she had climbed out of the driver's seat.

"What's all this?" Woody asked looking at all the equipment boxes and crates.

"Loaners from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts..." Jordan smirked.

Woody's eyebrow disappeared in his hairline. "I'm taking it Garret is enjoying his last few weeks as the man in charge."

"Taking advantage more like it," Jordan replied pulling the key card out of her pocket.

Before she could slip it in the lock, Woody took it out of her hand and opened the lock himself. He efficiently strolled in the room turning on every light and checking out the bathroom. He dropped her bag on the edge of the bed and opened the mini fridge next to the dresser.

"I put some bottled water and a few snacks in here earlier. If you need anything else just let me know and I can pick it up tomorrow."

Jordan nodded and looked around the plain, but clean room. The double bed looked so inviting, she almost fell face first into it.

Instead, she grinned from the doorway and said, "I'm sure I'll be fine..."

"Okay, well, I guess I'll see you in a few hours. The doc wants to start about 9. I'll pick you up about 8 and we'll get some breakfast."

"Can you make it 7?" Jordan asked. "I'd like to take a look at the scene reports before we start."

"Sure," Woody said rubbing his neck.

"That is unless you have something else..."

Jordan didn't know what his situation was. He could very well have someone sitting at home waiting for him now. From some reason it prickled her road-weary nerves. She didn't want to think about it.

Woody cleared his throat. It was uncomfortable standing in the motel room with her. The last time they were in a room like this, alone in the middle of night...he was helping her take her clothes off.

"No, seven is fine. I'll see you then. Good night Jordan."

"Good night Woody..."

As he turned to leave Jordan stopped him. "It's...good to see you again."

After a moment of awkward silence he said, "You too...I really need to...it's late...Ally's home alone..." Woody pointed at his illegally parked car.

Jordan smiled and Woody left. She watched him driving away knowing he was going home to someone. This was his world now. She didn't expect him to live in it alone.

What they almost had was over a lifetime ago.

She locked the door and turned off the lights saying, "Garret could have told me there's an _Ally_..."


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning Jordan was standing in front of the bathroom mirror still trying to scrape the cobwebs from her brain.

Her dreams where back...only this time instead of looking for Woody, he was there with his back turned against her cries for help. She woke up gasping for the stale motel room air hearing a baby's cry. It was still dark when she rolled out of bed and climbed in the shower. That familiar empty ache wasn't going to let her sleep.

Her watch read 7:01 when she heard the knock on the door. .

If anything he was still prompt, she grimaced twilling her hair up in a hasty knot. She took a moment to look at herself. For the first few months after the attack Jordan wore scarves to cover her scar. After the reconstructive surgery she was told she would be able to camouflage it with make up, but by that point she had accepted it as part of her.

She arched her neck studying the fine line there. She self-consciously remembered Woody trying not to do the same thing as they were talking the night before. She reached for a tube of concealer when there was another knock on the door. This time it was followed with Woody asking if she was even awake.

Forgetting the makeup she yelled, "Who can sleep with you pounding on the door like that..."

She yanked the door open was greeted with of the scent of freshly brewed coffee coming from the large paper cup in his hand.

"I'll do just about anything if you tell me that's mine."

Woody just grinned and handed it over. "I'll remember you said that after you look at the bodies. Are you ready?"

Jordan took a long drag off the cup before she nodded and grabbed her bag, locking the motel room behind her. She frowned as the crisp feel of the room's AC quickly dissipated. Even at time early hour the ambient temperature was in the upper eighties with the humidity hovering about the same.

"Is there anyplace to grab some quick sugar on the way in? I'm fighting a road trip hangover."

Woody grabbed a bakery bag from the open passenger side window of his Chevy. "I was hoping to use them bribe you further once you met my partner, but here..."

Jordan looked in the bag and saw two of her favorite kind of danishes. She was almost surprised he remembered.

"Do you think I'm going to need a bribe?" she said biting into the first one.

"Let's just say he's not happy about being pulled out of bed this early."

Woody didn't add that his partner, Manning, didn't appreciate the fact that Woody went out of the department on a pair of deaths that looked like coincidental suicides. Woody was used to the grumbling. Manning had been grumbling since Woody was hired. He didn't except anything less.

He watched her climb into the driver's seat of her vehicle, with a danish in her mouth and a coffee cup in her hand. She looked anxious to get started. God, he missed working with her.

* * *

The drive to the station gave Jordan a chance to eat her impromptu breakfast and wake up. Derry was laid out relatively straight forward. She doubted it would be very hard to get lost. As they cruised down the main street of town Jordan noticed roadsigns for a lake and spillway on the southside of town. The bait shop next to the turn into the sheriff's office made Jordan have expected to see Opie Taylor walked down the street with pole in hand. She whistled the theme to the Andy Griffith Show under her breath. 

Jordan felt like a minor celebrity when she walked in the door of the station. People poked their heads out of offices and looked her up and down like they expected her to break out in song. The few that came out to meet her were surprisingly welcoming. Either Woody made her sound like the love child of Madame Curie and Sherlock Holmes or the southern charm she's heard so much about was alive an well here in the Harrison County Sheriff's Office.

The urge to whistle again was almost unbearable.

She felt Woody hand on the small of her back as they finish signing her in and getting her a visitor's badge. He guided her past the dispatch switch board and the 911 operators. He seemed to know everybody by name. She wasn't shock. Even when he was with the Boston PD he knew more names then the people who worked in the human resources office.

Woody's partner proved to be as put out as Woody predicted.

He wasn't as much rude as he was confused with Woody's adamancy that they were looking at a set of murders. Reading the police reports, Jordan could almost see his point. Forensically speaking, everything pointed to suicide in every case. Unless the bodies were talking, no matter what the little voice in both their heads was saying...Jordan would have to recommend that they be signed off as suicides.

Fortified with a little more knowledge and some seriously bad police station coffee, Jordan climbed in the driver's seat of a Massachusetts Medical Examiner's vehicle. She flip open the window and called out to Woody.

"Why don't we ride together..."

Woody looked at his car once and pocketed his keys. "Sure," he said climbing in. He quickly fastened his seat belt...and if Jordan wasn't mistaken...said a silent prayer.

"Oh-come-on," Jordan complained. "I'm not _that_ bad of a driver."

Woody simply smiled painfully. Jordan rolled her eyes.

"You wouldn't consider letting me drive," he said.

Jordan let out an annoyed sigh and started the engine. "My ride...my toys...I drive."

* * *

Jordan smiled as Woody took his foot off his imaginary brake petal. She had to admit she purposely broke a handful traffic laws along with few noise and behavior ordinances on the way to the hospital. 

It was worth watching Woody's face change from pasty pale white to beet red in the time it took her to slip through her first stop sign...and the fourth. She could tell he wasn't very amused by the way he slammed his door.

She missed winding him up. Her little smirk was still firmly in place as they entered the hospital elevator and Woody pressed the button for the basement.

Hospital morgues always seemed to be in the basement. Maybe it could all be chalked up to some subliminal Bella Lugosi memory that made all hospital architects to house the morgue down a bare cinderblock, bare-light lit hallway. Inevitably they're locked behind smelly boilers, leaky plumbing and humming refrigeration units which just added to their gory ambiance.

The Parkview morgue wasn't at the end of a stereotypical dingy hallway, but they did have to pass the boiler room on the way. Woody tucked his stack of files under his arm and held open the door to the combination office-crypt-autopsy suite for her.

Either he was over their little ride or he was in cop mode.

Jordan was introduced to the Harrison County Medical Examiner. Dr. Franks was a thoracic surgeon from Savannah who retired to Derry for the quiet and part time job slicing up bodies. Before he knew it, the medical center was growing and he was spending more and more time in his scrubs, and less and less on his bass boat. He didn't complain, at least to Jordan. He said it kept him sharp...and bought him an all expense trip to the occasional medical examiner's seminar. Jordan found him welcoming, if not slightly amused at her presence.

One by one they wheeled the bodies out. Franks was used to using two beefy assistants. Jordan liked to only ask for help when she needed it. It took a few awkward minutes to find a comfortable working relationship.

The diver had all the apparent injuries of four story fall into a dried creek bed. The crime scene photos showed a set of shoe prints on the trestle's edge. The tox reports that were run after the body was initially access came back positive for a variety of recreational drugs.

A handful of fresh track marks on his belly proved that they were starting to get past the simply "recreational" phase.

With Dr. Frank's permission, Jordan made the first cut. One by one the internal organs are separated and examined.

Even after a year away from a frequent flyer status with the Boston ME's office, Woody was holding his own pretty well.

That was until Jordan clapped off the intestinal track and vacated it. Woody took it as his cue to go check his voice mail.

Jordan chuckled at as the door shut. Dr. Franks looked in the bowl of contents and shrugged. "It looks pretty normal for a kid that age," he said picking through the contents with a probe. "With the amount of congealed grease and artificial colors in here I'd say his last few meals consisted of fast food and...by the looks of it...Fruit Loops cereal."

Jordan nodded at the rainbowed colored clump of ...stuff...Franks had pointed out.

"Normal...that's what bothers me. If a kid is stressed out to the point of suicide you'd think his appetite would be off."

"Maybe it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Maybe he just had classic case of the munchies..."

"Maybe...but his doesn't jive with someone who just decided that offing himself sounded like a good thing to do after dinner at Mickey D's..."

"If he was starting to shoot up...maybe he was in over his head...this could have been accidental..."

"Could be," Jordan answered, but her tone wasn't very convincing sounding.

Jordan triple checked the locations of all the injuries attributed to the fall. Checking everything as objectively as she could.

Jordan stood back and let Franks and Woody lift the second victim on to the table. It was painful to see the waxy pale mound of her cold body.

Garret was careful to keep any situations like this away from her back in Boston. Objectivity was always a concern. They all worried that she'd see herself on the table...Jordan worried about it herself.

It was Jordan's turn to make her excuses and go check her voice mail.

Franks looked at Woody for an explanation. Woody closed his mind against his own vivid imagination and gave the man a benign shrug.

Woody looked away as the first cut was made. He focused on the girl's blonde hair instead of her pronounced belly. Dr. Franks was kind enough to warn him before he lifted the girl's engorged womb out of her body.

"It's times like this I really hate this job..." Dr. Franks murmured. He set the organ on a separate gurney and covered it will a drape for which Woody was thankful.

When Jordan returned Dr Franks had already removed and cataloged the rest of the woman's internal organs. Exsanguination was the obvious cause of death.

Jordan ignored the draped table, hoping that _that_ part of the procedure had been taken care of already.

She regloved and approached the body. Jordan had seen her share of slashed wrists before. She lifted the girls arm to study the incisions again. Woody watched her mind work and asked her what she was seeing that they didn't.

Jordan pointed at the ridges of the wounds. "She cut both sides from elbow to wrist. They're clean and deep."

"Which means?"

"She wasn't afraid of the razor."

"Cutters usually aren't..." Dr Franks added.

"I don't think she was. I don't see any other scars on her body. The length and depth of these cuts make me think they were made by someone who has had some...practice."

Dr. Franks mulled over what Jordan was saying and thought she had a valid point.

"So you think maybe someone else cut her?"

"I don't know...it's just these cuts. Why up and down instead of side to side? Granted, these caused some serious damage and the results would end probably have ended up the up being the same. But the incisions were very inefficient. Arteries cut like this tend to curl into each other in many cases they can almost seal themselves off, at least enough so to make it a slower...certainly more painful death. If you wanted to off yourself it would be quicker to go making redial cuts?"

"It was a cry out for help?"

"Most suicides are. But I'm confused about her intentions. Her suicide note talks about her boyfriend disserting her. Yet the police report says she called to schedule an OB appointment just that morning. Why do you make a doctor's appointment if you are planning on killing yourself?"

"My point exactly," Woody said with a humorless smile.

Jordan put the arm down and brushed her hand over the girl's soft blonde hair, "I'm not the one who has to sign off on either one of these cases...but if it were me I'd have to mark them both as inconclusive and open an investigation into both deaths."

"After hearing both of your arguments I have to concur." Dr Franks agreed.

Woody nodded and left the two examiners to finish their job.


	6. Chapter 6

Woody was sitting on two possible homicides. The first Harrison County has seen in years. He grabbed a ride back to the station from a black and white and briefed his captain. The families needed to be notified and further questions needed to be asked.

Woody felt alive.

In Boston, there were vastly more hopeless cases than detectives. Woody remembered working side by side with equally frustrated co-workers, each one of them running like a hamster on a wheel, getting no where fast...but unable to stop.

Woody's captain made sure he and his partner had more manpower than they knew what to do with. Woody delegated what he could while his partner pouted about being the senior officer and being undermined when the forensics where still inconclusive.

"I don't see why we have to put these families through this Hoyt. It's bad enough they have to live with the idea that they're loved ones killed themselves. Now we're going to smile and say there could be a remote chance that they could have been murdered."

"What a cheery thought. Christ, Manning! If you lost someone wouldn't you want some answers?"

After a few more bitter words, Manning washed his hands of the case said he'd concentrate on keeping the town of Derry safe while Woody chased his wild goose. If the newbie wanted to turn in his desk for a cruiser so be it. It wouldn't break Manning's heart.

Woody left the detective's office knowing the second this case was over he was going to ask to be solo. He tried, but Manning never got past the fact that Woody came out of nowhere. He'd been there long enough not to need a baby sitter anymore.

He checked his watch. Jordan and Dr. Franks should be done by now. He rounded the corner into the break room to grab a soda for the ride. He found Jordan grimacing into a coffee cup. His Boston PD coffee.

He remembered a time when he got used to Jordan "borrowing" his stuff. He also remembered when she stopped.

He missed wiping her lipstick smears off his coffee cups or reaching for his last bite of sandwich only to find it gone. He even missed searching for his secret stash of chocolate bars buried deep in his desk and finding nothing but empty wrappers.

He not only missed working with her...but he even missed being pissed off at her.

It felt good to watch her work earlier. Even when their personal lives stumbled off track, he still admired Jordan's knowledge and keen insight when it came to her job. He regretted the fact that he lost sight of that those last few months in Boston.

He stopped short at admitting he missed having Jordan and her expertise with him for the entire extent of an investigation. How many times did she find herself in trouble?

He suddenly saw her lying in that hospital bed. His stomach clenched in reaction. He needed to send her home. Out of sight out of mind.

If they were looking at Derry's first homicides in a quarter of a century he didn't want to have to worry about her trying to go off like she as in her home turf of Boston. He looked at the scar on her neck and didn't think his stomach lining could handle knowing the danger followed her around like some kind of albatross.

Jordan needed to go back where she belonged so he could concentrate on his job

On corner of her mouth curled up. "Why is it that the coffee tastes the same no matter what police station you are in?"

"Tradition I guess." he told her, his tone something of an apology.

Jordan dumped the contents of the cup in the sink and stowed the cup in Woody's cubby hole in the wall. Woody smiled at the faint traces of the hastily wiped off lipstick smudge.

"I want to thank you for your help Jordan. I know driving all the way down here wasn't fun. I'll make sure that you're hard work won't go unappreciated."

Jordan arched an eyebrow. "You sound like your packing me off."

"You went above and beyond Jordan. You saw what I had a feeling was there. I can't thank you enough..."

"...but you can handle it from here." she said mockingly.

"Well, yes. This isn't your job Jordan," he said flatly.

"Oh, so we're back to that," she snorted. "You just do your job Jordan and leave the police work to the police."

"Well...yes!" he interrupted, his jaw set.

She rolled her eyes and ignored his words with a boldness he had to respect, even if it drove him crazy.

Jordan had stopped by the station to do just that...Leave and let him do his job. Losing her baby made Jordan stop and take an inventory of her life. She found herself stepping further and further away from the chaos of the crime scene and keeping herself closer to the morgue.

She didn't miss the way he looked at her scar. She knew what he was thinking. It brought back the last time they saw each other...in that hospital room...like it was yesterday. They were both past their breaking points. She needed his support and he needed his space.

It was obvious how much had changed for him over the past year. What he didn't know is that she wasn't the same woman he left in that hospital bed.

Spending the day working with Woody again, she felt that old familiar rush of needing to have a front row seat in an unfolding mystery. She had to remind herself that this was Woody's new world and she was only there because he called Garret to get some advice. He didn't call her.

Woody's brush off hit her the wrong way. It felt almost like a challenge. Her body posture mirrored that.

Her fingertip drilled into his chest as she accentuated each word with it. "So you're going to make sure I get a nice little letter to put in my file and point me toward the highway! What if I want a piece of this?"

In the hallway Woody's co-workers were doing their best to ignore the raised voice in the breakroom.

"If you hadn't noticed we're about 1000 miles south of your stomping grounds. I'm grateful for help up to this point ...but you don't have any more authority here than a tourist."

Jordan had walked away from her own pile of work to drive nonstop to the middle of nowhere for a man that turned his back on her more than once. Jordan couldn't help but feel a little hurt. Her eyes flashed but her voice made the ambient temperature in the room drop by ten degrees.

"What are you afraid of Woody? Are you afraid you've gotten a little rusty and I might be able to piss a little high on the tree than you can?"

"No. I'm just plain afraid," he admitted quietly. "The last homicide I worked on you ended up in ICU fighting for your life."

"That's because we weren't working together," she said as if he was a dimwitted kindergartner.

"Go home Jordan," he said leaning forward giving her an I-mean-it stare.

"Not until you have a suspect in mind."

The room was suddenly too small for the egos present.

"Hoyt."

Woody jumped when he heard his captain's voice in the doorway. The man that hired him after a job interview over ribs and drafts in a local road house grabbed a coffee cup off the wall and filled it to the brim.

"I made a few phone-calls about Dr. Cavanaugh this morning. I liked what I heard. A pain in the ass...but a real go-getter. If the fine doctor here is offering her assistance I don't think it's in the best interest of the citizens of Harrison County to turn down her expertise. After all Hoyt, it was your idea to call her in for the consult. I don't need to remind you that you are under the microscope with this, Slick..."

Woody waited to roll his eyes until the man had left the room.

"_Slick?_" The sound of Jordan's smirk cut through the echoes of their earlier argument.

Woody gave her the look. "Don't...start."

"I think you're stuck with me."

"Jordan..."

He knew he was arguing with a wall. Jordan was like a pit bull at times...and just as ugly. Yet he couldn't deny he was looking forward to working with her one more time.

"Let's compromise. Just let me tag along for a day or two. I want to see where this goes..."

Woody really didn't have a choice. "Just remember your here in a totally unofficial capacity."

"Whatever you say..._Slick,_" she smiled enjoying his discomfort.

* * *

The captain had people canvassing the school and the local hangouts. Woody opted to talk to both sets of parents...and the girl's boyfriend. 

Three hours later they didn't know more than their young lady had broke-up with her long time boyfriend after she found she was pregnant. The boy is question was adamant he wasn't the father and only knew she had cheated on him with an older guy. At 17, everyone was older.

The boy consented to a paternity test. In Boston, they'd have a DNA test back in a day...here they were looking at weeks...unless they were willing to pay the lab is Savannah extra. The way the sheriff held the purse strings it didn't look like it was going to happen.

Jordan suggested doing a simple blood typing. In the end, the boy was telling the truth...His blood type didn't match the baby's. Woody requested the DNA test from the state lab anyway. Somebody was the father and right now it was the closest thing to a lead they had to go on. Hopefully they'd have a suspect before the test was back.

They left the girl's family and went to the first victim's. In was the same song, second verse. They said Ryan had his problems, but he never seemed suicidal.

Woody was torn whether to tell either family that they were looking into their child's death as a possible homicide.

As macabre as it sounded he didn't want to get their hopes up. With a suicide they had to look forward to a life time of questioning what they could have done different or blaming each other for not seeing the signs. A homicide can have a temporary galvanizing affect. Very temporary. Homicide opened the door to an entirely new set of blames.

In the corner of his mind Woody wondered if that was one of the reasons he left Boston. He knew what was ahead of them if he stayed. Would he and Jordan end up blaming each other for the baby's death?

Little did he know on the passenger side of his car Jordan was wondering the same thing.

Harrison County shut down every evening around dinner time. There wasn't much more they could do at this point. Woody suggested calling it a day.

"I know you're probably hot and tired, but why don't you have dinner with me tonight. I've got a couple of steaks in the fridge. We can have a few beers and talk."

"I don't know Woody. I know it's been a year but I don't think..."

"We can talk about whatever you want to. I miss just having someone to talk to."

"What about Ally?"

"Alice?" Woody asked, bemused. "Ally's a great listener but she'd rather have me rub her belly."

Jordan rolled her eyes in disgust. "You know what...just take me back to the motel. I'll grab something in town. You go...rub Alice's belly."

Woody blinked twice at Jordan's righteous tone and then laughed out loud.

"I don't see what's so funny."

"You."

"_What?" _

He tried to hide his grin but was unsuccessful. "Even after all this time you're jealous...admit it."

"I hate to burst your bubble Hoyt, but I gave up being jealous of you long before you left Boston."

"You _are _jealous."

She clicked her tongue. "No, I'm not."

"Are too."

Jordan gave him a look that said if he thought she was going to enter in the childish game of yes-you-are-no-I'm-not that he might as well pull the car over and she'd walk the rest of the way.

Woody gave her a self satisfied smile and said, "For your information Alice isn't my girlfriend. Ally's my dog."

* * *

_AN: Thanks for sticking with me on this. I promise it'll start moving along now. :)_


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Jordan didn't know what to expect when Woody pulled onto an older residential street along the lake front. She'd always just pictured him living in that two room walk up near the nineteenth precinct in Boston.

If he could read her thoughts Woody said, "You can buy a house here for less then I paid in rent for my old place in Boston..."

Her heart broke a little at the word _buy_. It meant he was home here in the middle of Southern Georgia.

He smiled proudly when they pulled up to a tiny brick front and cinder block bungalow. It was further dwarfed by the humongous live oaks towering over top of the dirt pack yard. The faded green door was flanked by two windows with old white aluminum awnings.

"It kind of reminds me of a bomb shelter," Woody said looking out the windshield at his little house.

Jordan couldn't deny that observation. The little house had about as much charm as a shoebox. "It's ...cute."

"Wait until you see the back."

Woody hopped out of the vehicle and up to the front door. Jordan hung back a few steps still trying to come to grips with Woody actually settling down. Maybe it for the best...

...maybe she _was_ a little jealous. Not of another woman...but that he seemed to have found some kind of contentment in his life. "_Roots"_ for lack of a better word. Something that he was apparently lacking in his life in Boston.

"Let me...double check." Woody half expected to find a big pile of dog poop in front the door like he did the night before.

"I haven't left Alice alone this much before...I'll put her out back... She's a little hyper."

"Hyper? Why doesn't that surprise me?"

Jordan heard of few excited yelps and the scramble of toenails scraping on hardwood floors before they disappeared.

She peeked her head in the door. The house was just as simple inside as it was outside. In just one look she could see the house was like the many old daisy chain houses in Boston...just smaller.

A small living room opened up into a wide kitchen with two bedrooms off to the left with a Jack and Jill bath between She'd seen houses like this. There were doors in each room that opened into next and if all opened it would make a big loop circling the inside of the house. She could only assume they were designed like that to keep the place cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.

She called out Woody's name.

"I'm sorry Jordan. We're out here!" Woody said leaning in the back doorway. Jordan walked around an old chrome and formica kitchen table to the back door. Woody was standing just outside smiling at an orange and white speckle dog rounding circles in the yard.

"That must be Ally," Jordan smiled.

"Yep," Woody nodded. He held open the door for Jordan to step outside. She noticed the back yard was as grassless as the front. Keeping with the theme of the house there was a cement patio with a small brick fireplace. All in all, Woody was right...his house could serve pretty well in case of a bomb.

...but Jordan completely understood why Woody bought it when she looked out and saw the softly ripping waves of the lake just twenty feet away.

"You like it?" Woody asked expectantly. Jordan is the first visitor he's had to his house and he was nervous on how some like her would react.

"Wow..." she said taking a step out.

Woody pointed down a newly repaired deck and to the outboard motorboat tied next to it.

"I just got that last week. I haven't had a chance to use it yet..."

Jordan wasn't looking at the boat. She was busy studying his profile as she had found herself doing quite a few times during the day. This man standing next to her wasn't the "Woody" she met in that bank all those years ago. He was gone. But this "Woody" wasn't the burnt out emancipated cop she knew in Boston either. A lakefront cottage, a few healthy pounds, a less stressful job...a dog. This Woody was living on some different plain...

...and she didn't know him from Adam.

There was a "quack" from the water and Woody let out a panicked groan. "Oh no."

Jordan looked down at the dock just in time to see two duck land in the water next to the boat.

"Alice...don't..."

Before he could stop her Alice was flying down the dock at full speed, sprinting off the short boat dock and into the lake.

"I just gave her a bath..." he mumbled.

Jordan felt her mood lighten watching the barking dog circling around in the water chasing a pair of ducks that didn't seem to think she was any threat.

"I never pictured you as a dog lover..."

"I'm not," Woody said offering her the lone chaise on the patio. Jordan sat down and listened as Woody disappeared into the kitchen to grab a chair from the table.

"Alice just kind of happened. On my first week on the job, I drew the short straw and was sent to help the ASACP shut down a puppy mill over on the eastside of the county."

He tossed a pile of charcoal in the pit and dowsed it with lighter fluid.

"Alice was in a litter of newborn Brittney pups. Most of the animals eventually had to be put down. Alice was iffy. I don't know. The next thing I know I'm volunteering to foster her until she was old enough to be adopted. My uncle had a pair for quail hunting when I was growing up. They were alright...for dogs."

He lit a match on the side of the house and tossed in the fireplace.

"She went everywhere with me that first few weeks and before I knew it ...it just never came time to take her back to the pound. She's good company."

He gave her a little shrug and smile like he was embarrassed by saying he had bonded with this dog. Those first few weeks here in Derry were tough. He was lonely and hurt, but most of all he was afraid he'd lost touch with his human side. Like the Alice before her, the little puppy had landed into his life like she fell through the same rabbit hole he had.

She was there, with an abundance of unconditional love, when he was ready to start healing.

Alice gave up the hunt when her quarry swam out of range. She came bounding up the yard and stopped short when Woody warned her not to jump. She dropped a muddy tennis ball at the side of Jordan's chair. Jordan looked at it like it was toxic waste, but when the dog gave her playful yap Jordan gingerly lobbed it off the patio and into the yard.

Unimpressed with the wimpy throw, Alice retrieved the ball and shifted gears. She trotted a wide berth around Jordan and dropped the ball at Woody's feet, her whole body stiff with anticipation.

Jordan could almost hear the soggy dog's thoughts: _'Throwthebal...pleasssse...throwthe ball...'_

Woody hurled the ball toward the water. It landed in a loud ker-plunk just left of the boat.

"That should keep her busy for awhile," Woody smiled as Alice took a second flying leap of the end of the dock. He looked at the grime on his fingers and said, "Can I get you a beer?"

Jordan nodded and he disappeared in the house. She leaned back in the chair listening to him moving around the kitchen. She leaned back in the chair catching a small breeze from the lake watching to the dog playing down by the water.

She thought about Kayla and their time together. It was a stretch to compare an abused puppy to a traumatized girl, but Jordan couldn't help herself.

Kayla was happy with her mother. They'd developed a loving relationship that left Jordan feeling more and more like an outsider everyday. They still spent time together but not like they used to. Woody's turn at a "foster parenting" gave him a companion that was clearly as happy and .

Woody let out a sharp whistle from the doorway and Alice came running up the yard tripping over her feet in efforts to answer his call.

Once again, the little dog stopped at the edge of the patio dripping, wet waiting _almost_ patiently for someone to acknowledge her. Jordan instinctively knew if she even twitched she'd be a doggy towel.

Woody came out juggling a couple of longnecks, a dog bowl and a platter of steaks. Jordan reached out and liberated the beer from his hands. If anything was going to fall she didn't want it to be the cold beer. She's needed a drink since Garret talked her into this trip.

"Please tell me the meat is ours..." she smiled.

"Unless you'd rather," Woody teased holding out the bowl of kibble.

Alice let out a pathetic yap trying to remind everyone she was sitting there as nicely as she could. Her impatience caught up with her master's distraction and she started performing every trick in her arsenal. Jordan had to laugh at her antics.

"I bet she keeps you entertained."

"Aggravated is more like it," Woody smiled, his tone telling a different story. He set the bowl down just off the patio and took his beer from Jordan's outstretched hand. Alice made short order of her chow and found a dappled patch of sunlight to lay down on and digest.

As the streaks broiled over the charcoal, the conversation ranged from the status of the case to what Jordan was working on in Boston.

But soon, they both found themselves picking at their food while Jordan caught Woody up on the gossip that his occasional talks with Garret left out. They were consciously dancing around the subject they both needed to get out in the open. Jordan was the first to break the ice.

"What happened?"

Woody shifted in his seat looking to the world like someone just told him that Christmas was going to be postponed this year. "What? Is there something wrong with the steak?"

"No, it was delicious. The best steak I've had in ages." Jordan said pushing her own mangled steak away. "We needed to talk about what happened a year ago..."

Woody had the good grace to look embarrassed. He picked the plates up off the table and set them in the sink before he spoke.

"**I** was what 'happened' Jordan. I lost my temper..."

"I'm not talking about that. Why did you leave when I needed you?"


	8. Chapter 8

_AN: My apologies for the long delay in updating. Life kind of happened and before I knew it a four chapter lead dwindled to nothing. __I promise to be more prompt from her on out... _

_

* * *

_Woody was silent for a few moments. Jordan reiterated her question as if he hadn't heard her, even though she knew he did. 

"What happened Woody? Why did you leave? I know it wasn't because you went to that pool hall that night. There was never a report filed. You just baled. I need to know. Was it because I didn't tell you the truth about the baby?"

It was the first time, in a very long time, she admitted out loud that Woody was the father of her child. After the baby was gone there never seemed to be a reason to change her story.

Just before she left the hospital, Garret confessed that he told Woody the truth. In some small way it was like a burden had been lifted from her soul...but in that very same way it buried her in an unspoken guilt. A guilt that stayed hidden until now.

"Did you leave because you couldn't forgive me..." She let the question hang, twisting her fingers into knots, sitting there on the verge of tears.

Woody hated to see her cry. It made him feel useless and weak. Two characteristics he despised in someone. Especially himself.

He pulled her chair away from the table and knelt down beside her. "No. I didn't leave because that. To tell you the truth, if I had stayed in Boston I probably would have been a lousy father..." his voice faded out while he tried to form the words in his mind.

Jordan looked at him waiting for an explanation. The intensity of her stare made him uncomfortable.

"The day I was shot, I saw how incredibly naive I really was. Before I knew it anger was the only thing I had to hold on to, the only thing that kept my going. I knew it was wrong. My whole I believed in the old concept of Good versus Evil and I was afraid this time Evil was going to win. I'd already lost Cal and one by one I was losing everyone, and everything that ever meant anything to me. When I found out you were going to have a baby I knew there was no going back to the way we were. You'd moved on and I was falling back."

Woody remembered the night that led up to Jordan being attacked. He didn't care about police protocol. He'd stopped worrying about that a long time ago. Maybe he was looking to get himself fired. He had nothing else left to lose. He'd had already lost it all once before. His shield just didn't seem all that important anymore.

"I went looking for that creep because I knew you were right. I _HAD_ written the case off. I didn't want to deal with it because I knew it was a lost cause to start with. I knew they'd give me...maybe...24 hours to look into it. Nobody gives a flying fuck about a dead hooker...the least of all the front office."

Woody stopped and smiled nostalgically at the picture in his head of Jordan telling him, in no uncertain terms, and in front of a dozen or so police officers, what she thought of his professional opinions. God he loved to see that fire in her eyes...even when it was directed it him.

"You used to tease me about my ideology... and there you were, with your hand on your belly, adamantly telling me that you thought I was the worse kind of hypocrite. I was driving home that night thinking maybe I was. The next thing I knew I was cruising that corner with a half baked plan in my head and an attitude to match. It wasn't hard to find him. I figured if I gave him a reason to come after me, I could rattle him enough to confess. I was going to go back the next night, with a wire, and a few guys. It was a cheap ploy but I thought it would work."

"You could have set yourself up to be killed Woody," she said softly, turning away.

"But that's not how it worked out. You showed up the next morning and started asking questions. You were a sitting duck."

"I didn't know..."

Gently, he turned her face towards his. "Don't you see? I did...and I didn't warn you."

"You can't blame yourself for that," she argued.

His voice was low and strained. "I do and I always will. I couldn't stay knowing that my actions almost lost you you're life...and that of your baby's. If it wasn't for me getting so far over my head...you'd be with your child today."

"It was your baby too," she whispered, staring at him with almost painful tenderness.

That stare was Woody's undoing. Those last few months in Boston he'd find himself stealing quick glances at her...wondering what it would be like if it was _his_ baby growing inside her. The times she caught him she'd stare back. He assumed it was just pity. Those kind of pitiful looks he'd grown accustomed to from everyone else over that last year. But from Jordan they were different. It was like she pitied them both.

Even back then, somewhere deep down inside, who knew that Jordan wasn't being honest with him about the baby. He selfishly chose to ignore that little voice that told him to confront her one more time. He was too afraid of the answer...one way or the other. It was that point when he stopped going to the morgue unless it was absolutely necessary.

"I needed you..." she said putting her hand on his shoulder, almost reading his thoughts.

"I wouldn't have been able to help you Jordan. I had already destroyed us both..."

"You could have tried. You ran instead."

"I left because I didn't have a choice. My life was broken and there was no way to fix it. I knew if I stayed one more minute I'd end up taking you and probably a few more people in that Hell with me. I couldn't let that happen," he said gravely.

He took a deep breath and asked, "What would you have done if you were me Jordan...when it was suicide to stay and murder to leave?"

Jordan blinked away the tears at the raw candor of his question. She reached out and used her fingertips to brush away the ones streaming down Woody's face.

She remembered lying in that hospital bed debating the same thing. If it weren't for the loving support she had she probably would have left to start over again in some place that was barely on the map...like Harrison County, Georgia. She could see were Woody wouldn't think he had that same support.

"I don't know..." she admitted in all honesty. "...I do know I wouldn't have left without saying goodbye."

Woody gave her a lopsided grin. He'd told her goodbye. He just made sure she was asleep when he said it. In a gesture that was felt as natural a breathing, he brushed the pad of his thumb over the soft between the corner of her lips and the mole on her jaw. Saying goodbye to her like that was the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life. Under the circumstances it was the easiest way.

He opened his mouth to reply when the phone rang. He let it ring.

"You'd better get that," she said as the machine started to pick it up. "It maybe something about the case."

Woody reluctantly stood up and grabbed for the phone hanging along side the refrigerator, almost knocking it off the wall. "What!...This is Hoyt."

Jordan used the opportunity to escape into the bathroom. Jordan ran the tap and splashed her face. She blotted it dry with the towel, sagging against the porcelain, completely drained.

The room was so tight that you could take a shower and brush your teeth at the sink...all at the same time. Alone, she allowed herself to pick up Woody's soap. She could tell it was the same he used in Boston. Even under the more complicated scents of his aftershave and shampoo, she could always make out the simple clean crisp smell of his soap. There was always something comforting in that simplicity.

She jumped when Woody knocked on the door. "Jordan?"

"Yes," she said, keeping her voice even.

"We need to go."

"What?" she asked opening the door.

Woody looked at point past her. She could tell he was already retreating back in himself.

Their conversation was far from over. She swore to herself that before she left Derry they'd both find some closure.

"There's been a break-in..."

"Where?"


	9. Chapter 9

Jordan's question was answered, and some, when they pulled in the motel parking lot. Woody told her to stay in the car even though he knew it was an exercise in futility.

The sun had gone down and it was completely dark, but it didn't take the high noon sun to see the damage that inflicted on her motel room. The bedding and her personal belongings were strewn around the room like a tornado has hit the room...but her laptop and all the equipment she brought was sitting, untouched, right were she'd left it earlier.

By the look of his face, Woody noticed the same thing.

"It wasn't a robbery..."

Woody's partner, Manning, flicked his cigarette butt out into the parking lot as he stepped in the room. "You were lucky you weren't here Dr. Cavanaugh. Whoever did this wants you outta town..."

"Why do you say that?" Woody asked.

"This," he smirked. Manning led Woody though the disarray to the bathroom. Jordan followed keeping her steps in theirs.

"I hope that lipstick you use isn't like that fancy stuff my ex buys...because our perp had some fun with it."

They all looked at the derogatory message scribbled on the mirror. Manning tapped his breast pocket for his cigarettes and added, "They're not very original but the message is pretty clear..."

"Who was the first on the scene?" Woody asked, his voice was calm, professional, almost without emotion. Jordan would believe it was true if she didn't notice the muscle in his jaw twitch.

"I was down the street and Mick's when the call came in," Manning said weaving his way outside.

Woody ignored the fact that his partner just happened to be taking calls while holding up real-estate at a roadhouse bar.

"Did anybody see anything?"

Manning shook his head and lit a match.

While Woody watched the tip of his partner's cigarette begin to glow and marking the days until he didn't need to ride with him anymore, Jordan was looking at the eaves of the building.

"Is there any surveillance cameras?" Jordan asked in general.

Manning picked a flake of tobacco off his tongue and snorted. "This is the Derry Motor Lodge...not the Four Seasons..."

Woody rubbed the back of his neck. For once the small town innocence that was so made the idea of Derry so attractive to him in the beginning was looking down right dangerous now.

Jordan looked across the two lane street to the brightly lit hospital where she had spent the better part of the morning. "But I bet they do," she said, pointing.

Woody missed the panic look on his partner's face, but Jordan didn't. She automatically took a step forward holding her hand out in front of her. Woody had seen this pose more times then he ever wanted to. It usually ended up with someone running...or someone dead.

"You didn't think about that did you sergeant," Jordan said carefully.

Manning's eyes spoke volumes even if his words said otherwise. "I don't know what you are talking about Miss Cavanaugh. If you'll excuse me. I think Hoyt here has everything under control. I'll just go across the street and see if I can get a hold of those parking lot tapes."

Woody watched the exchange with keen interest. He started doing the math of the last few days...no, the last few _weeks_ in his head. He didn't like the way it was adding up.

"Let one of the uniforms get them.." Woody said taking his own step forward.

He reached for Jordan just as Manning took off across the parking lot. For a few minutes there was sheer chaos as the reality of the situation hit. Somehow Manning was involved in the murders. Woody pulled his gun as he pushed Jordan down behind one of the patrol cars parked in front of the motel room door.

His partner of eleven months stopped running when he heard a dozen firearms leave their holsters. He turned, but instead of holding his hands up he pulled his own weapon and held it loosely to his side.

He stood under the circle of the lone street light, casting him in a glow that was reminiscent of an interrogation scene in an old film noir. For Woody it was almost surreal.

"Let's talk Jeff," Woody called out. "Tell me what's going on."

Jeff Manning let out a snort and lifted his hand toward the cigarette in his mouth. He carefully pulled it out and flicked it away causing a shuffle of excitement in the uniforms that had him in his sights. Woody yelled for everyone to stand down and asked Manning the question again.

"Damn Hoyt. She was so fresh...and so hot," Jeff smiled almost manically. "I'd see her hanging out with her friends in front of the pizza place in those tight jeans and short tops. God...you can't tell me you didn't notice too..."

Woody suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He urged Manning to continue keeping an eye both on him and the rest of the officers on the scene. Some of the men were fathers of teenaged girls themselves. He could see some itchy trigger fingers...

"One night I followed her to a party up on the state property on the other side of the lake. She was having trouble with that little creep she was seeing. I brought along a few beers...and a little pot. I didn't mean for it to happen. The next thing I know she was all over me."

Woody doubted his side of the story was as black and white as Jeff was saying, but with the young lady dead there was no way to tell.

"A month later she comes to the office saying she's pregnant. I didn't need anyone hearing this conversation. I took her in the back. I thought it was empty. I tried to tell her she had to be wrong. Come on, she spend her legs for me...I'm sure she did for everyone."

Woody could her Jordan's gasp of indignation from where he stood. He cut her a glare that told her to stay down. For once she did.

"So what happened Jeff?" Woody asked as matter-of-factly.

"I told her I'd pay for her to get it taken care of. You would a thought I asked her to kill someone..."

Woody swallowed hard. He was half tempted to shoot him himself at that point. Instead he took a step forward. Manning lifted his gun. Woody put his hands up. "We're just talkin' here Jeff. Getting a woman pregnant isn't a capital offence."

Manning didn't lower his gun but he wasn't aiming it at anyone in particular. He start gesturing with it like it was an extension of his hand.

"How the hell do you know Hoyt? I can't imagine you ever losing control like that..."

"We all make mistakes Jeff. We have to make the best of the situation..."

"She wanted me to acknowledge I was the father and pay for it. I gave her lip service just to get her out of there so I could think. How the hell was I to know that that Ryan kid was in holding waiting for his folks to pick him up? He heard the whole conversation."

The pieces were all starting to fit together. Manning could see the realization in his partner's eyes.

"He tried to blackmail me. I played along for awhile. I made sure he was left alone by the department. He went to Jenny. They had me by the balls. He started wanting cash, drugs, anything I could get him. I knew it would never stop. I told him I meet him by the trestle..."

Woody cut him off. "Jeff you should be quiet no. We'll get you a lawyer..."

"What difference would it make? I did it. I didn't mean to push him. It just happened. I panicked. I knew he was a mixed up kid...He had a back pack with him. It had some school stuff in it. It wasn't hard to trace his handwriting and leave a note. I buried the evidence the dumpster behind the Piggly Wiggly."

"What about Jenny?"

"I called her and told her I wanted to come clean. I offered to marry her. She said her folks weren't home. She asked me to come over. I don't know. Maybe it was because I already is far gone I didn't have anything else to lose. I stopped by my uncle's place on the way over. He's had to put animals down on the farm before...it was just a matter of finding the right drug...I have you to thank for that by the way..."

Manning stopped and absentmindedly pointed the barrel of his gun at Woody. Woody was quick to remind everyone to stand down.

"Why are you thanking me?"

"You and your big ass stories about how they did everything from take down suspect to take a shit in _Boss-ton_. You used to make me puke. But you knew a thing or two about forensics and how to cover a crime... It was just a matter of covering her mouth and letting the drug take over. I had to make it look like suicide. Nobody would get suspicious of another kid gone. While she lay there paralyzed he just used her old man's fishing knife and cut her. Another copied note and I was free and clear."

For the first time since this started, Manning actually took aim with his weapon. He assumed the position with Woody in his sights. "Franks would have signed off and you would have looked like a fool. Just a little added prize. But you talked the sheriff in to letting this lady doc come in..."

"Even if Jordan hadn't of come...we would have figured it out," Woody said.

"Maybe, maybe not. But I couldn't take the chance."

Woody felt a trickle of sweat roll down his back looking down the barrel of the gun but he kept his stance neutral. There had been enough blood shed already.

"So you thought you could just scare her out of town?"

"I don't know...yes maybe. I just wanted it to end. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I just lost control."

Manning's hand began to waver. Woody took one more step closer.

"Jeff..."

"Don't," Manning said quietly. "Don't make me hurt you too."

"Let's just put our weapons down. We'll go back to the office...and..."

"And what? You'll arrest me? That'll look good in your record won't it? You'll get a pat on the back and I'll go to jail to await my _fair_ trial. Do you know what they do to police officers in jail Hoyt?"

"I'll do everything in my power to make sure you don't go in to the general population."

"Save yourself the bother Slick..."

Before anybody could blink Manning shoved his service revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Woody sprinted the last few steps but it was too late.

* * *

Jordan stood off to the side and watched Woody and the rest mingle in a stunned silence as the EMT's loaded Manning's body up in the ambulance for the ride across the street to the morgue. She offered to ride with him and offer Dr. Franks a hand, but Woody reminded her that she was a "tourist". She would have started a fight over his posturing if he wasn't shaking so hard.

She put her hand on his shoulder. "There was nothing you could do."

"We'll never know, will we?" he snapped. Jordan flinched back and Woody felt like the world's biggest heel. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."

"I know," She said reassuring him. She wrapped her slim arms around his middle and laid her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry this happened."

Woody didn't care that half the department was watching them. After a day an a half of reassuring his colleagues that his relationship with the hot ME from Boston was purely profession he kissed the side of her head and wrapped his own arms tightly around her like she was some anchor in the storm.

* * *

As the scene was secured and her statement taken, Jordan noticed Woody grab the same officer that had followed in to town just 24 hours before. She didn't need to hear them talk to know Woody was arranging with the patrol officer to take care of her while he finished up the business that still needed to be done back at his desk. She wanted to go with him but there was nothing left for her to do. This was his job, his men...not hers.

Woody walked up to her fumbling with his keychain. "This is the key to my house," he said pilling off a brass key and placing it in her palm. "Rogers is going to take you back. I'll tried to get some of your stuff...but..."

"Don't worry about it. I know this is still and active scene."

"Make yourself at home...There's a spare toothbrush under the sink and the towels are in the closet. I only have the one bed but you're welcome to it. I doubt I'll be back before morning anyway."

Jordan noticed his hands had stopped shaking as the adrenalin was being purged from his system. All that was left was the exhaustion and disappointment. "Are you going to be okay?"

Woody's tired smile gave her the real answer even when he said he was fine. He held open the passenger side of Rogers' cruiser for her and tapped the hood before they drove away.


	10. Chapter 10

Jordan did make herself at home at Woody's place. That, of course, was after she and Alice came to a working relationship on the concept of personal space. Saying the dog was a little hyper was an understatement. Jordan felt like she was being confused with The Second Coming. Thank God Woody didn't have much worth stealing.

She used the shower and commandeered a clean t-shirt and running shorts from Woody's closet. She tried to enjoy some piece and quiet down by the dock until the mosquitoes tried to carry her and Alice away.

She ambled around the four room house verifying her earlier theory that you could run laps between the rooms...if you didn't mind that they were very tiny laps. She settled in the tiny spare room that Woody had obviously turned into an office.

The room was further dwarfed by an old metal desk that looked like he had rescued from a dumpster some place. The walls were covered with the same pictures and citations she remembered from his office at the 19th. Remembering Manning's words about Woody being a little gung-ho she could see why he chose not to put his I-love-me wall up in the office he shared with the man.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a picture of herself next to the computer monitor. She had never seen before. In the picture she was standing in the hallway, outside her office, laughing at something or someone just outside the range of the camera.

By the candid nature of the shot, she could tell that whoever took it caught her totally unaware. She recognized the top she had on. She'd ruined it by accidentally splashing some chemicals on it a few years ago. The photo had to be at least four years old. Physically she hadn't changed much...maybe a few more lines and her hair longer. Yet, she was so different back then. Ironic as it sounds, Jordan had to admit she, herself, was really quite naive in so many ways.

Would things be different if she hadn't opened up her heart? Would she have allowed herself to have a relationship with JD...that ended up with her stealing a night with Woody at the Lucy Carver Inn...that led to the baby she'd never hold in her arms.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

Just like she didn't think she knew this new Woody anymore, she didn't recognize the woman in the photo. When was the last time she truly laughed like that? Was it was JD...or _before_? When had her own life turned into a never ending cycle of getting up going to work, going home and going to bed...just to wake up and do it all over again?

Woody escaped his life to save his sanity. Jordan never claimed to have one to start with.

Did he have the right idea? Was leaving Boston behind the best thing? She still had to ask herself if it was for the better.

It hurt that he left. She wasn't afraid to admit that to herself...even after everything that had happened...or more to the fact _didn't_ happen between the two of them.

Could she take some of the blame for not being there when he needed her the most? Yes, he pushed her away...but how many times had she been guilty of the exact same thing? She watched him spiral out of control and barely lifted a finger in support. She just told him to get some help.

He did. And ended up in the arms of the very person she told him to see.

Yes, he should have been more of a man. Yes, he should have been more mature...but she wasn't lily-white herself.

She pulled the picture off the wall and looked at it closer. The dog ears edges showed that he's probably hauled it around with him since it was taken she flipped it over and saw Nigel's steady pen...

'_You see she did like the joke about the diary farmer and the nun. Even though I still say you messed up the punchline horribly.' _

Jordan smiled, not believing she remembered that God awful joke. The only thing that saved it was the expression that Woody got on his face when he saw it had bombed. She remembered laughing about it for the rest of the day.

She also remembered thinking that if Woody hadn't bounced into her life like he had, she would have totally forgot what it was to laugh at lame joke and just plain enjoy life.

What happened to that Farmboy?

She gently hung the photo back up and traced her finger over that image there and changed the question...

_What happened to the glimmer of promise in that woman in the picture? _

As if she could sense her new friend's heartache, Alice gave up her spot under the desk and put her head in Jordan's lap, nudging her hand.

"Is this where you are supposed to be a good listener...as long as your belly gets rubbed?"

Alice didn't seem to notice anything other than Jordan scratching her ears.

Jordan told her she was cute...for a dog that is. She said that her master had done a good job in raising her. Jordan wondered out loud if maybe he _would _have been a good father. Her baby would have been eight months old if it had survived.

Jordan asked Alice about what milestones they would have passed. What would their favorite toys be; what would those first giggles be like...What it would have been like to hear her child say Mama for the first time...

Alice fell to the ground in a pile of goo and flipped over on her back, prompting Jordan to climb down to the floor to scratch the pup's belly.

She continued her onesided conversation about her child, confiding in Alice that she had hoped the baby would have inherited the sunny outlook Woody had on life before the shooting. She secretly wished for it to have Woody's blue eyes also...but knew that she'd never be able to hide the fact of the baby's paternity if it did.

Jordan was in mid sentence when she heard Woody cleared his throat. Alice leaped up with a pile of wiggles hoping her beloved master didn't notice she was the world's worst guard dog.

"I thought you'd be asleep by now," Woody said holding his hand out. He had to smile. His old Kewaunee County Sheriff's Annual 10K Run T-shirt never looked so good.

She let him help her off the floor. "I didn't think you'd be back until morning."

He scraped his hand down his face. Jordan could make out the faint traces of his partner's blood in the cuticles of his finger nails. There may have not been much love between the two, but losing any co-worker was tough...especially like that.

"The sheriff wanted to talk to Manning's family personally before this hit the papers in Savannah. There was really not much for us to do tonight."

Jordan could read between the lines. With emotions so high the sheriff wanted his people to stand down for a few hours. She didn't envy the next few days for the department. Something like this was going to be a high hurtle to get over in such a small close knit community.

Woody's voice sounded as tired as he looked. "Why don't you get some sleep Jordan I'm going to take a shower..."

Alice finished prancing around her master to just be ignored and searched out her own bed on the floor in the living room. Woody pulled and extra blanket out of the closet and told Jordan, once again, to use his bed. They were both too tired to argue.

Woody loitered in the doorway of his bedroom, with the blanket in his arms, looking like he wanted to say something. Jordan waited patiently.

"What you were saying earlier...about the baby..._looking _like me..."

"I wouldn't have kept you from the baby if you wanted to be part of its life..."

Woody gave her a weak smile. "Thank you...but I meant, did you know, do they tell you anything about the baby...like whether we had a boy or a girl..."

It was Jordan's turn to look away. A year ago her baby was gone...and so was its father. They asked her if she wanted to see the Polaroids they had taken of tiny one and half pound fetus. They asked if she wanted to give it a name...have a memorial. She was in too much pain to even think past the fact that her soul was hollow.

Garret took care of the remains and Howard took care of the rest. Since the baby wasn't legally considered viable there was no death certificate, nor autopsy. The fetal demise report and the pictures that some sympathetic OR nurse had taken were all that was left...and those were locked up in Howard desk for, if and when, she was ready to see them.

"I never asked...," she said softly, almost apologetically.

"...oh, okay." he nodded in the same hushed tone.

With a whispered 'good night' Jordan shut the door leaving Woody with one more tragedy of that long ago day to deal with.

* * *

The next morning Jordan woke to an empty house, a note on the refrigerator, and her SUV sitting out in the drive.

_The team from the State Crime Lab didn't need your vehicle. I know you are probably anxious to get back to Boston. They should be done with everything else by mid morning. I left a box of doughnuts on top of the fridge. Any lower and Ally would help herself. Woody_

"... 'anxious to get back to Boston'" she repeated to herself . Was she?

There was nothing left for her to do here and a ton of work for her to do there. If she left by midmorning she could be back in Boston by sun-up. She had less than three weeks before Garret would be gone and Slokum would be taking over. She was used to his professional expectations she'd been gearing herself up since they found out he was coming back.

Boston was her world. It was where she was comfortable; where she was needed; where she didn't need to cry herself to sleep like she did last night.

She called Garret and told him when to expect her. She was done here.

* * *

Woody personally collected Jordan's belongings from the motel and had them on the portico of the office when she pulled up. Like the night she first rolled in, she gave him a two fingered wave and a cockeyed smile.

Jordan sat in the driver's seat while Woody and Rogers loaded everything in the back. She smiled her thanks to the young officer and waited for Woody so she could say her own goodbyes to him.

"I guess this is it," she smiled.

"I guess it is," he replied.

"About our talk...we never got to finish it..."

Woody shaded his eyes with the arch of his hand and watched a gull float effortlessly on the little breeze that filtered through the trees. It was easier to watch the damn bird then look at Jordan's face knowing what he had to say would hurt her.

"I'm sorry I left you like that Jordan and not a day goes by that I don't think of you and all the friends I left behind...but I'm not sorry I left Boston."

She reached out for his hand and wove her fingers through it. "I know and I can't hold it against you. Not anymore. Outside of the whole chimichanga thing I used to think that maybe you'd grow into Boston. I didn't think it would chew you alive. I figured that was my job," she added with a little laugh. "I see now that you are meant for a small town. I won't lie and say I don't miss you...but I understand."

"Thank you Jordan. You don't know how much that means to me."

Jordan's lips twisted up on a small grin. She pulled his hand until he leaned down so she could kiss his cheek. "I'll so you around cowboy."

"You know were to find me," he smiled back warmly.

"Don't tempt me," she laughed softly. "With Garret leaving in a few weeks and Slocum coming in I think I'll be digging in to me five years of unused vacation time quite liberally."

"Come back," he teased. "By them I'll have the boat running and we can do some water skiing..."

Jordan laughed at him like he was half crazy. "You just want to see me in a bathing suit."

"You can't blame me for trying," he smirked.

"Take care of yourself..."

Woody lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it gently. "Good bye Jordan."

As she drove away Woody waved until she was out of sight. Over the last year many of his fears and nightmares had faded. The bogey man was no longer just around the corner and he felt like he could stand on his own two feet again... But some dreams never go away. Just like the dream he had of a future with Jordan in it. The odds were against them from the beginning. He'd come to accept that fact. No matter where life led them seeing her again, holding her in his arms...even ever so slightly were memories he'd keep inside for the rest of his life...


	11. Epilogue

_FLUFF! FLUFF! _

_The fluff bunnies staged a coup, the angst bunnies were to busy balling to put up much of a fight. _

_I added a "Take it or Leave it" epilogue for those of you that prefer a little dessert after dinner._

_

* * *

**Epilogue:**_

Jordan rubbed the round curve of her belly and watched as Woody flipped a burger on his new mac-daddy barbeque grill. She bought it for him the day they signed the signed the papers on the new house.

The new house was more like another fixer upper. It was the three-bedroom colonial right next door to Woody's bomb shelter bungalow. The pluming needed to be replaced and the kitchen and bath would fit right in a 1950' post-war tract house. But for them the location was nothing short of perfect. They decided to keep 'The Brick' and use it as a rental. And they had plenty of friends who would like to jump on a built in holiday home.

Their first tenant was Garret. He was going to stay for a few months to help Woody with the renovations and maybe use the quiet solitude to put some words on paper. Jordan was hoping to talk him into staying on until after the baby was born.

When she took over for Dr. Franks as the county ME she didn't plan on needing maternity leave so soon. Little did she know she was already expecting. She was hoping she could twist Garret's arm into standing in for her for that few weeks.

When she came to visit Woody that first time the idea of settle here in Derry wasn't even a notion. But by the time that week was over, they both knew there was more unfinished business between them then who was responsible for what had happened to them. The subsequent visits it came harder and harder to leave. Not only because she would miss him, but she was falling in love with the slower lifestyle and the waking up in the morning knowing she didn't need to face Slocum, and his petty comments.

By Christmas her frequent flyers miles were adding up, her phone bill was through the roof...and they had both rediscovered feelings that they thought they had buried deep.

She never expected a job offer to be the new full time Harrison County Medical Examiner, but it took her less then a week to except. New Year's seemed to be a good time for a new start.

From her spot on the old lawn chaise, Jordan covered her eyes from the glare the dappled late-spring sunlight that was filtered though the oak boughs high above. Four more chaises had joined the patio set since Jordan moved to Harrison County. Each one was filled with a good friend that had traveled out for the long holiday weekend.

"Remember Jordan's last house warming," Lily smiled sipping her ice tea.

"I'd just as soon forget..." Bug grumble under his sunglasses. "It took me a week to get over the hang over."

Nigel snorted from his spot at the picnic table. A year of South Beach sun had turned his pasty pale skin to a shade that could be described a just plain pale.

"Jordan's last house warming we ended up talking about her ticking clock and desire for a ring on her finger. My how things have changed..."he drawled, slipping his new girl, Alice, a carrot stick from the hors d'oeuvre tray.

Woody arched his eyebrow at the mention of a housewarming and Jordan shot him a look that said she'd talk to him about that bizarre night later.

"I'm still mad, Jordan, that you didn't invite us to the wedding," Lily pouted teasingly.

"How many times do I have to tell you there was no wedding," Jordan laughed. "We stood in front of the judge during our lunch hour and went back to work afterwards."

"Still, we could have a flown in a few days earlier..."

Jordan twisted her shiny new wedding ring around her finger. She was still trying to get used to it...but it didn't make her feel like forty pound vice like she thought it would. She was still 'Dr. Cavanaugh', she still had her own credit card, and, outside of Woody's wishes, she had signed a contract to be a consultant with the State Crime Lab...But deep down it was nice to have that commitment...not that she'd ever admit it out loud to her new husband. It was nicer to let him think she was just granting him a favor after months of badgering. He was more 'grateful' that way.

"Speaking of weddings, Dr Stiles asked me to bring you a present. It's in my suitcase. It's an envelope..."

Woody dropped the last burger he was flipping on the ground rising Alice from her spot of worship at Nigel's feet to run and investigate.

Jordan gingerly touched her belly. "Thank you. I'd left some papers in his office I asked him to send them with you..."

"I can go get them right now if they're important..." Lily said sitting up.

Garret held his hand out to stop her from running into the house to get them. He had seen what was in that envelope. He was the one that told Howard to keep it...along with Max's paternity test. "It can wait..." he smiled.

Jordan smiled softly, grateful for Garret's intervention. She and Woody planned to sit down together and look at them after everyone had left.

"Right now I'd kill for some chargrilled meat and some of that potato salad you've been bragging about all day and then I want to sit on the dock and laugh my butt off watching Bug on water skis..."

Bug rolled his eyes and Nigel said the promise of getting his buddy on water skis was more than enough reason for him to get up before dawn and drive his motorcycle the six hours to see it.

Jordan leaned back in the chair as her friends joked and teased each other while helping themselves to the food that they had all prepared together. Even though they had all ended up in so many different directions they had never lost track of the knowledge that they were family in everyway it matter most.

Two years ago, her life as she knew it was over. Now, with the promise of a new life and an old love it had bloomed again, stronger than ever, and she looked forward to many weekends like this in her future.

Never in a million years did Jordan picture her life leading her to this point...but here she was. And for the life of her she couldn't be more happy...


End file.
